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ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD SIGNED AND INSCRIBED FRAMED PORTRAIT Beautifully signed and inscribed textured sepia portrait in fine vintage frame. Portrait by G. Maillard Kesslere of New York. Inscribed: "With admiration and regards, To Clare Luce, R. E. Byrd". Large portrait matted to acid-free material and backing board and preserved in fine vintage 11" x 14" frame. Undated; circa 1930's portrait and inscription. As shown. Insured post. Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr. (October 25, 1888 - March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of the Antarctic Plateau. Byrd's expeditions were the first to reach both the North and South Pole by air. Clare Boothe Luce (March 10, 1903 - October 9, 1987) was an American author, politician, U. S. Ambassador and public conservative figure. She was the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She was the wife of Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was well known for her anti-communism. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of President Franklin Roosevelt as a protege of Bernard Baruch, but later became an outspoken critic of Roosevelt. Known as a charismatic and forceful public speaker, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan. George Maillard Kesslere was one of the last students of American impressionist painter, William Merritt Chase. Upon graduation, he established a portrait studio in Syracuse, New York, in which he practiced both photography and painting. He also collaborated on several mural projects. Though his camera work won immediate recognition for its artistry. In 1921 when The Debutante, a New York periodical catering to "the four hundred," invited him to become art editor, Kesslere lept at the chance, moving to New York City. A set of portraits published in Vanity Fair cemented his reputation as a talented camera artist and won him a city clientele. An aesthete, libertine, and party-giver, he became an important figure in consolidating cultural connections between flambouyant artists and high society in the period between the wars. Noticing the vogue in the cultural magazines for hazy photographs of nude dancers, Kesslere in 1923 began developing a series of paintings and pastels of diaphonously draped nude girls running in the open air. In the world of theatrical photography, Kesslere's fame did not rest on representations of the body, so much as his evocative and experimental treatments of the head. He was one of the finest of the bust format photographers of the late 1920's and 1930's. He excelled in the atmospheric, painterly treatment of the backgrounds of these bust shots. For his portraiture he was awarded recognition by the British Royal Academy of Photography. He renovated and modernized the late 19th-century style of vignette photography in which a portrait bust would float disembodied in pictorial space coalescing out of a drawn rendering of the sitter. The success of these mixed media portraits led others, such as Hal Phyfe, John De Mirjian, and even Irving Chidnoff, to experiment with the style, leading to a moment when a distinct New York style of art portraiture prevailed. Size: Folio - over 12" - 15" tall.
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